Your cheatin' heart listens to country music for life lessons, catharsis: Study

Listening to country songs, like those by Brad Paisley, seen in Ottawa in this January 2011 file photo, can serve as a warning against cheating or other life lessons, according to a study published in the Review of General Psychology.

Photograph by: Jana Chytilova
, Ottawa Citizen

Why do people listen to country music?

Though the question may sound patronizing, it's actually the subject of serious scholarly inquiry, with a new academic report proposing an evolutionary explanation for people being drawn to songs of failed relationships, lost love and violent vengeance.

Titled Cheatin' Hearts and Loaded Guns, the Review of General Psychology paper argues that high-stakes musical narratives reward listeners by sharing valuable information about reproductive survival. Much like gawking at a traffic accident, it seems dire consequences serve as vital reminders of that which can cut us off at the knees.

In the words of Nashville sweetheart Carrie Underwood, "maybe next time he'll think before he cheats."

"Country music feeds our desire to learn about things that carry high fitness consequences in the world, whether fictional or actual," says report author Robert Kurzban, associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

"It's the same way it can seem weird that people rubberneck at accidents, watching people they don't know and will never see again: there's an informational appetite that's being satisfied."

By "fitness" stakes, Kurzban refers to those things that affect people's ability to survive and reproduce: everything from sexual relationships to physical illness and social conflict.

He notes the cost of betrayal is laid out by Garth Brooks in Papa Loved Mama: "Papa loved mama, mama loved men, mama's in the graveyard, papa's in the pen."

Miranda Lambert addresses domestic violence in Gunpowder and Lead, singing: "He slapped my face and he shook me like a rag doll. Don't that sound like a real man. I'm going to show him what a little girl's made of: gunpowder and lead."

And the link between commitment, sexual access and reproduction is writ large in Little White Church by the band Little Big Town: "No more calling me baby, no more loving like crazy, no more chicken and gravy. I ain't gonna have your baby 'til you take me down to the little white church."

The paper also acknowledges obvious elements of catharsis.

For instance, even though most people wouldn't reasonably expect to be involved in a booze-fuelled double suicide — a scenario depicted in Brad Paisley's Whiskey Lullaby — they may be drawn to the dark song for the magnitude of the emotional experience.

"It wouldn't be entertaining to find out that Oedipus got a paper-cut; what's tragic is that Oedipus does this other thing that has disastrous fitness consequences: having sex with his mother," says Kurzban.

"It may seem a little dry and dispassionate to look at the arts from a biological perspective. But at the same time, I think it's very productive, helping add to our human understanding."

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Listening to country songs, like those by Brad Paisley, seen in Ottawa in this January 2011 file photo, can serve as a warning against cheating or other life lessons, according to a study published in the Review of General Psychology.

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